Late Roman Bronze Cosmetic Set

With thick lentoid-section hoop, flat plaque with applied tiered cone. 3.06 grams, 21.85 mm overall, 12.84 mm internal diameter



Ex Graham Slater collection, Cambridge, 1980s-1990s.

Each with a hollow-formed crescentic hoop, piriform plaque with inset glass panel and granulated border, hollow-bulb cluster beneath with three applied piriform plaques and granule finial. 9.26 grams total, 37-38 mm



Acquired in the mid 1980s-1990s. Private collection, Switzerland, thence by descent. Private collection, since the late 1990s. This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate number no.12393-226929.

As a result of the expansion of the Roman Empire, jewellery became more and more elaborate in its designs and materials used, such as precious and semi-precious gemstones. This pair of earrings represent a highly baroque evolution of the boat-shaped type, already visible in Etruscan jewellery and certainly in Roman jewellery, as demonstrated by the excavations of Herculaneum. Using the body of the boat-shaped earrings, the late Imperial artist added decorative clusters and applications of pearled borders and precious stones, according to the taste of Eastern Hellenism rooted for centuries in the provinces of the Black Sea and Roman Asia.

Comprising: discoid head with raised rectangular neck, tongue-shaped bow with tapered end; the head decorated extensively with a raised triskele style pattern, with retained enamel in alternate yellow and red colours; the body with a raised longitudinal running linear border bisected by four latitudinal borders; within each sub-rectangular cell, a crescent border with central raised pellet; within each cell created by the raised borders, retained enamel in alternating red and yellow; the reverse undecorated with lug and chord, catchplate to lower end. 13.7 grams, 57 mm



Found by Mr Wayne Colbeck whilst searching with a metal detector in Thorpe Audlin, Wakefield, Yorkshire, UK, in 2014. Accompanied by a copy of the British Museum's Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) report no.YORYM-D5BBD5. Accompanied by the finder's original copy of the York Archaeological Trust's object entry form dated 31 October 2014 with reference no.E001019.

Sally Worrell, National Finds Advisor has been unable to locate any comparable examples of this form of brooch. It has been designated by the British Museum as a 'Find of Note' and of 'Regional Importance'.